1. Technical Field
The present invention relates in general to the field of software monitoring and development and in particular to methods and systems for software monitoring and development which permit the detail tracing of software flow. Still more particularly, the present invention relates to methods and systems for software monitoring and development which permit the continuous recording of high-volume performance trace data for an extended time span.
2. Description of the Related Art
The monitoring and development of software applications has always represented a difficult technical challenge. Known software based "tracing" techniques typically require significant overhead in terms of processor requirements and output bus space. As a result, the performance of the software application under development cannot truly be monitored in an operating environment without severely degrading the performance thereof due to the processing requirements of the software based tracing program.
It is also especially difficult to monitor the development of software applications for a second generation processor while utilizing a first generation processor as the monitoring device. A known problem with existing hardware based software monitoring and development techniques is the inability of existing hardware monitoring systems to continuously record high-volume performance trace data for longer than a few seconds. Thereafter, the storage buffers in such devices are filled, and the monitoring system must overwrite, wrap around or stop recording.
Therefore, it should be apparent that a need exists for a software application monitoring and development system which permits the continuous recording of high-volume performance trace data without adversely affecting the performance of the software application under development.